Is it possible to trace produce purchased at the store back to the field where it grew? FERN Reporter Elizabeth Grossman endeavors to follow a recalled mango back to its source and finds a labyrinthine documentation system in a new report online today by the Food & Environment Reporting Network (FERN) for Mother Jones, “Want To Find Out Where Your Fruit Was Grown? Good Luck.”
“It turns out that tracing produce from kitchen counter back to its grower involves information that is far more difficult to obtain than one might guess, as key details are often considered confidential business information,” reports Grossman.
Since 2009, stores have been required to conspicuously display any fruit or vegetable’s country of origin, but these labels don’t require sharing with the public information about who grew the produce, who packed or transported it, or about the wholesaler or other business that sold it to the market where it was ultimately purchased by an individual consumer.
“Unless you do all your shopping at a farmer’s market, the produce you buy has made a journey roughly like this: Grower > Packer > Distributor > Supplier > Store,” reveals Grossman. “But some produce is packed where it’s grown; some is mixed with other growers’ products at a centralized location. Sometimes, the packer may also be the distributor. Sometimes growers sell directly to the distributors and suppliers who act as wholesalers.”
There isn’t “just one system” that companies use to trace produce from grower to market, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) traceability expert Sherri McGarry told Grossman. “She described the exchange of information between growers, packers, distributors, suppliers and retailers as ‘handshakes’” that leave holes in the system, writes Grossman.
The Food Safety Modernization Act, which passed in 2011, has allowed the FDA to begin to shore up information systems in the entire produce supply chain. “At the same time,” reports Grossman, “the Produce Traceability Initiative, a voluntary industry program, is developing an electronic system that would replace paper records and idiosyncratic filing systems.
The goal is a globally standardized system with bar codes and digital, computer-readable labels. But advocates for smaller growers are concerned about how such a system would affect those without the capacity or inclination to implement high-tech recordkeeping.
Meanwhile, there is very little recourse for consumers who want to understand better the chain that brought produce into their kitchen. “Retailers, distributors, and wholesalers all stressed the importance of having confidence in one’s suppliers and spoke of good suppliers as something of a business advantage,” Grossman writes. “But as I learned with the example of my mango, even in the case of a recall, source details shared publicly are few. Largely, the industry continues to say to the public, ‘trust us.’”
You can read the full report here at Mother Jones, where you can find a sidebar “Your Produce’s Secret Past,” or here on our website. To learn more about PLU codes, which are categorizing numbers grocers use on produce labels, see our resource page.